By STEPHEN GROVES, MARY CLARE JALONICK and AAMER MADHANI
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Tuesday urged Congress to “show some spine” and stand up to Donald Trump even as a Senate deal on border enforcement measures and Ukraine aid was rapidly collapsing.
The Democratic president has engaged for months with Senate leaders to form a bipartisan plan that pairs policies intended to curb illegal crossings at the U.S. border with Mexico with $60 billion in wartime aid for Ukraine, as well as tens of billions of dollars more for Israel, other U.S. allies in Asia, the U.S. immigration system and humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza and Ukraine. But within days of an agreement being reached, Senate Republicans have backed away from the package, stranding Biden with no clear way to advance aid for Ukraine through Congress.
“If the bill fails, I want to be absolutely clear about something, the American people are going to know why it failed. I’ll be taking this issue to the country,” Biden said, adding that Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee is to blame.
Biden, along with the Senate’s top Democrat, Sen. Chuck Schumer, and top Republican, Sen. Mitch McConnell, have run into a wall of opposition from conservatives — led by Trump — who rejected the border proposal as insufficient.
Schumer, from New York, cast Tuesday as a “gloomy day here in the United States Senate” during a floor speech in which he scolded Republicans for backing away from the deal. He offered to delay a key test vote on the package until Thursday, but still dared them to vote against border security — an issue they have long championed.
“After months of good faith negotiations, after months of giving Republicans many of the things they asked for, Leader McConnell and the Republican conference are ready to kill the national security supplemental package even with border provisions they so fervently demand,” Schumer said.
The White House has worked for…
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